In the past, glass and stainless steel have been used as the material for fermenters and required at the minimum, aeration sparger and air outlet as well as mixer and sampling port. These fermenters are available in several sizes such as the mini jar fermenter with volumes of 1 to 5 liters made of glass, the jar fermenters made of stainless steel with volumes of 10 to 200 liters and finally even larger fermenters.
The small scale fermenters have been used to generate laboratory data and for fermentation tests and at times, 10 or more are run simultaneously but in general, they are expensive so only a selected number of researchers can use these fermenters.
Recently, more precise and easy control of the temperature in fermentation rooms have become possible due to the efficiency and increased popularity of air conditioners and the size of the fermentation rooms in general have increased. More efficient use of the fermentation rooms by placing numerous identical size fermenters to make more effective use of the space, and simple fermenters with high fermentation efficiency, transportation of the fermentation product, and finally efficient waste disposal of the fermenter are now in demand.